Worst. Pitting. Ever!
Somebody had to say it.
I don’t know if he was an idiot, be sure as hell was one shitty architect. His building are ugly, poorly constructed, and generally unlivable, and he’s the perfect examplar of everything that was wrong with architecture in the 20th century.
Thanks, Silenus! I appreciate that.
Yeah, it’s started to really bug me. Hence the pitting. Maybe I’m alone in this. What I object to is that some people really seem to revel obscenely in trying to tear down well-regarded works of art. It’s gotten under my skin, even when I agree with some of the criticism. Some people are just really pompous and self-satisfied with their bashing, as if being able to bash alone gives them good taste or a sophisticated perspective. Take the recent modern architecture thread as an example, or a recent thread bashing Faulkner, or a recent thread bashing Citizen Kane, just to name a few examples.
To my (admittedly subjective) perspective, yes Cafe Society is overbalanced by smug fecal orifices pompously sharing their dislikes.
And if that were my only example, you might have a point.
And yet the Guggenheim is one the best laid out art Museums in the world and the building is very interesting visually from the outside. I’m not a huge fan of Fallingwater but I do like the window seats and built in storage and shelving. My wife tells me I just don’t like modern, she is probably correct. I don’t love the Guggenheim but it flows so damn well that I don’t know of a Museum of comparable size that is as well designed for its purpose.
Thanks, Miller. I appreciate your post: that is, in the sense that I appreciate having a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Empty dismissal, arrogant and poorly informed generalization, pointless hyperbole. Perfect.
Huh. Did you read my post? At all? How about, you know, the “There’s no disputing taste” part? And it should be clear to a half-awake reader that what I’m pitting is not that there are posts that idiotically bash things, i.e. not that such threads exist, but rather that the mix of proud and pompous great art bashing is replacing real, substantive discussion. The signal-to-noise ration of Cafe Society is getting very low. There’s a large number of people who are so absurdly proud of themselves that they are able to anonymously ridicule the works of other in pointless ignorance over and over again.
I’m not pitting that it happens at all. I’m pitting that it’s happening so much. It’s annoying.
Another example: how nice it would be to have a real, informed discussion of architecture instead of that semi-polite, ignorant bash-a-rama that thread has become. But there are no informed discussions of architecture to be found, only the other, lesser, odious kind. That bugs me.
Just out of interest, does you ire apply only to those who casually dismiss the so-called “great” or “classic” works of art, or do you also take exception to one-line, dismissive comments about less rarefied artistic endeavors?
I hesitate to suggest this, but some discussions in **GD **can be civil and interesting. A more detailed and critical view of architecture might do well there. The current Battleshipdebate shows that **GD **threads do not have to be the fearful things they are reputed to be.
Well, it was the only *actual *example you gave - the others I couldn’t find a real counterpart in Cafe Society (at least on the front page). For a trend that is creating “way too many threads”, they sure are hard to find.
And Brokeback Mountain wasn’t half the film The Hills Have Eyes* was.
There is no disputing taste.
*the original version, of course.
I’ve never been to the Guggenheim, so I can’t really comment on how well its laid out. I have spent my fair share of time dodging leaks at the Marin County Civic Center, because Wright didn’t know how to build a decent roof. And while I’m as much a fan of shelving as the next man, it doesn’t change the fact that Fallingwater looks like a pile of shoeboxes.
I don’t know how well the roof of the Guggenheim works and I prefer both the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for their collections and displays. But the the floorplan of the Guggenheim is really well done and worth checking out. The building really stands out in NYC where this is far from easy.
I don’t disagree with you much on Fallingwater, but that is a matter of aesthetics and the modern look of Fallingwater does not appeal to me. It appears to be very functional and well designed.
As to Marin County Civic Center are you being fair? It was not even started until after his death. He was what, nearly 90 when he designed it?
Wouldn’t a discussion on architecture get moved by the mods? Maybe I’m wrong about this, but certainly discussions of art should be in Cafe Society.
You have got to be kidding me. Did you miss the endless Faulkner bashfest? Or the Citizen Kane defacatathon? Or the modern architecture blundering-dismissal wankfest? Those are all recent.
Once again, I don’t object to the existence of such dismissals per se, but the fact that so much of Cafe Society is consumed with them to the exclusion of interesting, meaningful, insightful discussion.
I think it is borderline and you can always Email the GD mods first to verify and ask for it to stay in GD. While architecture is an art, it might well be accepted as a Great Debate. I asked for and eventually got permission to hold Mock Debates in GD during the primary season. Sadly the debates failed to generate the interest I thought they would on the Dope but the Mods were accommodating. So it is always worth a try. The worst they can do is say no and I think they would say yes.
It appears I have. Yet they still don’t seem to be crowding out other types of discussion to the point that there is (still) only one such thread on the main page. (Edit: Two - I’ll throw in the “I Hate Juno” thread for you.)
“So much”? Seriously now - don’t you think you’re the one being consumed at this point?
Shrug.
I think you’re suffering a bad case of confirmation bias, looking for Philistines wherever you go and noting each and every single one. If you think that Cafe Society is “consumed” with the sort of posts you hate, it’s probably because you are obsessing about them so much that you miss the “interesting, meaningful, insightful discussion.”
This. I see far more “____ appreciation” threads than bashing threads, and frankly I enjoy them both. If something is overrated (and Crash is a first ballot hall of famer in this category) it deserves to have that pointed out.
Glad I could provide such an apt illustration of how hollow your OP was.
I was going to post something about how the OP’s attitude is a common refuge of those who can’t support their opinion. It’s childish and even more narrow minded than those he attacks.
But everyone else has already taken care of that for me.
So instead I’ll mention that the one time I was in New York City I didn’t get to see the Guggenheim because the building was in disrepair, rotting from the inside out and growing massive mold infestations. It was closed so they could essentially disassemble large portions of the structure and replace them. So as a result of the architecture I didn’t get to see the museum; that sounds like a failure on the part of the architect to me.